DIGNITY OF MANNERS
A CERTAIN
dignity of manners is absolutely necessary, to make even the most valuable
characters either respected or respectable in the world.
ROMPING &C.
HORSE-PLAY,
romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, waggery, and indiscriminate
familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They
compose at most a merry fellow, and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable
man. Indiscriminate familiarity either offends your superiors, or else dubs you
their dependent and led captain. It gives your inferiors just, but troublesome
and improper claims of equality. A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither
of them is the least related to wit. Whoever is admitted or sought for, in
company, upon any other account than that of his merit and manners, is never
respected there, but only made use of. “We will have Such-a-one, for he sings
prettily;” “We will invite Such-a-one to a ball, for he dances well;” “We will
have Such-a-one to supper, for he is always joking and laughing;” “We will ask
another, because he plays deep at all games, or because he can drink a great
deal.” These are all vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and
exclude all ideas of esteem and regard. Whoever is had (as it is called) in
company, for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing, and will
never be considered in any other light; and consequently never respected, let
his merits be what they will.
PRIDE
DIGNITY of manners is not only as different from pride
as true courage is from blustering, or true wit from joking, but is absolutely
inconsistent with it; for nothing vilifies and degrades more than pride. The
pretensions of the proud man are oftener treated with sneer and contempt, than
with indignation; as we offer ridiculously too little to a tradesman who asks
ridiculously too much for his goods; but we do not haggle with one who only
asks a just and reasonable price.
ABJECT FLATTERY
ABJECT flattery and indiscriminate ostentation degrade,
as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust; but a modest
assertion of one's own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence to other
people's, preserve dignity.
Vulgar, low expressions, awkward motions
and address, vilify, as they imply either a very low turn of mind, or low
education, and low company.
FRIVOLOUS
CURIOSITY
FRIVOLOUS curiosity about trifles, and a laborious
attention to little objects, which neither require nor deserve a moment's
thought, lower a man; who thence is thought (and not unjustly) incapable of
greater matters. Cardinal de Retz very sagaciously marked out Cardinal Chigi
for a little mind, from the moment that he told him he had written three years
with the same pen, and that it was an excellent good one still.
A certain degree of exterior seriousness
in looks and motions gives dignity, without excluding wit and decent
cheerfulness, which are always serious themselves. A constant smirk upon the
face, and a whiffling activity of the body, are strong indications of futility.
Whoever is in a hurry, shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.
Haste and hurry are very different things.
To conclude: A man who has patiently been
kicked may as well pretend to courage, as a man blasted by vices and crimes may
to dignity of any kind. But an exterior decency and dignity of manners will
even keep such a man longer from sinking, than otherwise he would be: of such
consequence is decorum, even though affected and put on.
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